I think we have to consider that Illumination may have become a brand unto itself. Whether or not audiences know the name or merely know the work, at the very least the idea that a given animated feature is “from the people who brought you Despicable Me and Minions” is a draw by itself. Pixar is a brand, Marvel Studios is a brand,
Walt Disney Animation is a brand, and there was a period from around 2004 to 2012 when
DreamWorks Animation was a brand. And now, The Secret Life of Pets just scored a $38.325 million opening day. That’s the fifth-biggest opening day ever for an animated feature and the ninth-biggest single day period for any animated film ever. It's the biggest ever on both accounts for a non-sequel/prequel.

The film snagged an A- from Cinemascore and (per PostTrak) played 59% female and 56% under-25. Interestingly enough, 40% counted themselves as pet owners, which I would consider a shockingly low statistic. Considering the film is catnip to those with domesticated pets, the fact that it’s playing this well with an audience mostly made up of non-pet owners is rather incredible (I guess people who don't own a cat or a dog like watching funny cat videos too). I would imagine pet ownership is about to rise exponentially among that 60% after this opening weekend (poor, poor parents).

Anyway, the Universal/
Comcast Corp. offering cost just $75 million to produce and will probably cross that threshold today. It had already made $30m overseas over the last two weeks but will do most of its foreign business in August. As I wrote yesterday, this is the sixth Illumination feature in the last six years, with Despicable Me being followed by Hop, The Lorax, Despicable Me 2 and Minions. The animals are voiced by the likes of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Albert Brooks, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey and Hannibal Buress. It has received decent reviews and every single person I’ve spoken to about the summer line-up for the last couple months has expressed both awareness and interest.

The only question is whether or not we have a new $100 million+ opening weekend on our hands. If it plays exactly like Minions this weekend, and I think that’s a relatively safe bet, The Secret Life of Pets gets to $95.8 million. The most frontloaded major debut weekends for an animated feature I can recall are The Simpsons ($30.7m Friday/$74m weekend) and Finding Dory ($54.7m/$135m), both of which would put The Secret Life of Pets to over/under $92-$94m for the weekend. If it plays anything leggier than that, say the standard 2.6x-2.71x for most recent Pixar films, we’re looking at a $99.5m-$104m debut weekend. But as long as it tops $91m, it'll best Inside Out as the biggest debut ever for an original animated feature.

The other big debut this weekend is 20th Century
Fox’s Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. The $35 million comedy, courtesy of Fox and Chernin Entertainment, stars Zach Efron and Adam DeVine as young men who put out an ad on Craigslist for would-be dates to their sister’s wedding only to get conned by two somewhat rambunctious women (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza). The film is an old-school star+concept sell, in that it has known/liked actors with an easy-to-explain premise along with a budget small enough to not require a blockbuster debut.

The film earned $6.65 million on its opening day, which falls into the “pretty good” category. The picture had a strong concept but frankly didn’t look very good, and the reviews confirmed that. It is, unfortunately, the definition of mediocre, stymied by the script that doesn’t play with the gender-specific double standards inherent in its premise and regularly punishes our two brothers for situations that weren’t their fault (or was only the fault of one of them), which means their redemptive arcs ring false. But whether or not the paying consumers will care is another question. If you came to see the four leads look good and crack lowball jokes, you’ll get what you paid for.

If it plays like standard R-rated comedy over the weekend, we’re looking at a $16-$18 million debut weekend. Where it goes from here is an open question. Two years ago, Fox legged The Other Woman to $83.9 million from a $24.7m debut, and they got Let’s Be Cops to $82.3m off a $26.2m Wed-Sun debut. A similar run could get the film to around $55-$60 million. It has three weeks until Bad Moms on the 29th and a month until Suicide Squad, but we also have the big-budget and female-skewing Ghostbusters opening next weekend, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays regarding legs. It's still a solid little programmer and even Dirty Grandpa (also starring Efron and Plaza)ended up with $94m worldwide earlier this year.

The major limited debut for the weekend was Captain Fantastic. The Viggo Mortensen-led drama, about a patriarch who raises his six kids in a forest and entirely off-the-grid, opened in four theaters this weekend courtesy of Bleecker Street. The film, written and directed by Silicon Valley's Matt Ross, should make around $100,000 for the effort. We'll see if it expands wider over the rest of the summer.

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I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for 28 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last ten years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing ...